NN Finding America in the New Germany

[pynchonoid]

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-German at h-net.msu.edu (June, 2003)

Fredrick Kempe. _Father/Land: A Personal Search for
the New
Germany_.  Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press,
1999. ii + 339 pp.  $25.95 (cloth), ISBN
0-399-14497-8; $17.95
(paper), ISBN 0-253-21525-0.

Reviewed for H-German by Katharina Gerstenberger
<gerstek at email.uc.edu>, Department of German Studies,
University of
Cincinnati

Finding America in the New Germany

The book under review is part family history and part
journalistic
account of the author's travels in post-wall Germany
and his
conversations with regular Germans, as well as
representatives of
various organizations.  Born to German parents in
Utah, Frederick
Kempe is correspondent for the _Wall Street Journal
Europe_ and
author of books on Latin America and Russia.  His
readable prose
confirms Kempe's proven record as an experienced
writer and analyst,
while the absence of footnotes or a bibliography makes
amply clear
that the work is not intended as a scholarly study. 
The book
combines two projects:  on the one hand, it is yet
another version
of the often asked question how the heirs to Goethe
and Beethoven
could have perpetrated Auschwitz; on the other hand,
it is a
personal search, as indicated in the title, for the
writer's
German-American heritage.  The disturbing dual
presence of high
cultural achievement and Nazi crime runs through
Kempe's own family,
whose ancestors include the composer Robert Schumann
and a Nazi thug
(whose vicious crimes went unpunished after 1945 due
to "lack of
evidence").  By making himself a subject of the
investigation, Kempe
forgoes the analytical distance of the outside
observer.  The
feelings of contamination, guilt, and moral confusion
he experiences
upon learning about his Nazi forefather complicate
Kempe's already
conflicted attitude toward his own "Germaness" to the
degree that he
considers the question whether Nazism is a "genetic"
trait, a debate
most recently rekindled by Daniel Goldhagen's study.

Kempe's focus is on post-wall German society and the
question as to
how Germans view themselves fifty years after the
defeat of the
Nazis and after forty years of political and
ideological division.
While he credits Helmut Kohl with the creation of a
unified Germany
and attributes much more political astuteness to him
than to his
successor Gerhard Schroeder, the majority of his
interlocutors come
from the political left, most notably the writer Peter
Schneider, a
personal friend from whom Kempe takes his most
important
interpretative clues.  Others include Ignaz Bubis,
chairman of the
central council of Jews in Germany; foreign minister
Joschka
Fischer; and Cem Oezdemir, Germany's first member of
parliament of
Turkish descent.  The members of the author's
basketball club in
Berlin-Charlottenburg, a quirky and highly
individualistic bunch of
teachers and professors, illustrate that Germans
manage to reconcile
their desire to belong to a _Verein_ with the
deeply-felt conviction
that Germany is bearable only if one leaves often and
for prolonged
periods.  Kempe's search for ordinary Germans,
vigorously aided by
his German friends and acquaintances--all of whom know
typical
Germans although none of them identifies personally
with that
category--leads him to uncover a peculiar mix of
enlightenment and
social responsibility (such as the adoption of
mixed-race children
from third world countries) combined with a pettiness
that is,
perhaps, uniquely German when neighbors take fights
over fences to
court.  Kempe paints an overall positive picture of
contemporary
Germans, even though he also relates xenophobic,
anti-semitic as
well as anti-Turkish statements.  Today's Germans come
across as
educated and well informed about their country's
history, of which
both younger and older informants acknowledge that
Germans of all
generation must be aware. His younger interlocutors,
by and large,
do not feel personal guilt but express a sense of
collective
responsibility.  If there is a question in anyone's
mind whether
Nazism could reappear in Germany as a political force,
Kempe's
answer is a resounding no.

The most interesting, and, in a sense, the most
overtly political
aspect of Kempe's investigation of modern Germany is
his discussion
of German-American relationships and the question what
Germans have
learned (or should learn) from the Americans in order
to overcome
those qualities deemed too German, such as a penchant
for rigidity
or difficulties with democracy.  In a formulation
Kempe attributes
to the writer Peter Schneider, Germany is not only
Hitler's
offspring but also America's stepchild.  In the
literal or moral
absence of fathers after 1945, America became an
_Ersatzvater_ for
the post-war generation, whose Americanization through
popular music
and film led to democratization and a generally "more
relaxed"
attitude.  For Kempe, as well as for Peter Schneider,
Americanization was a much needed and ultimately
successful antidote
to Nazism.  In the end, Kempe does not explain the
proximity of
Weimar and Buchenwald, mainly because, I suspect, it
is the wrong
question to ask.  Cultural achievements and barbarism
in one society
are not mutually exclusive, and there is no causal
relationship
between the presence (or absence) of one or the other.
 There is no
mysterious dual nature lurking in every German or in
German history.
(Goethe's Faust, after all, whose often quoted lament
serves as the
epigram to chapter 1, did not bemoan a good and an
evil soul in his
breast but, rather, the painfully felt twin-pull of
earthly desires
and spiritual needs.)  Kempe's own argument that the
infusion of
American culture into German everyday life--in the
minds of many
Germans even today the opposite of high culture in the
tradition of
Weimar classicism--democratized Germany also implies
that high
culture had relatively little impact on the majority
of Germans.
Kempe's insightful book is a sophisticated and
sympathetic
discussion of contemporary German identity from a
consciously
American perspective.

        Copyright (c) 2003 by H-Net, all rights
reserved. H-Net permits
        the redistribution and reprinting of this work
for nonprofit,
        educational purposes, with full and accurate
attribution to the
        author, web location, date of publication,
originating list, and
        H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online.
For other uses
        contact the Reviews editorial staff:
hbooks at mail.h-net.msu.edu.


=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.org/>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com